Windsor Castle Flower Garden

The Flower-Garden at Windsor Castle has received the addition of a number of marble vases, and statues, some of them cast in metal, and some of marble. Some of these are from the antique, and some in the style of Louis XIV. The planting of the garden is liable to all the objections which we before mentioned (Vol. V. p. 605.); and the beds at this time are almost without flowers: very different, indeed, from the dazzling display at Dropmore. In some of the vases there were a few shabby half-starved fuchsias and other green-house plants, which would be considered a disgrace in a cottager's window; and the few flowers introduced in the beds were chiefly yellow lupines, marigolds, and other of the commonest annuals. In the centre there is a fountain, issuing from the orifices of a piece of metal resembling the rose of a watering-pot. The horizontal jets, which rise only an inch or two above the water, and extend almost in contact with its surface, have an exceedingly good effect, by giving great agitation to the water; but there is much want of a perpendicular central jet. The view from the noble terrace round this garden is, for richness and grandeur, as far as we know, unrivalled; and the exterior architecture of the castle, now nearly everywhere renovated, appears to us in unexceptionable taste. The gates to the long walk or avenue, with their low stone-roofed lodges, and massive angular stone piers connecting the iron palisading, we particularly admire. We saw the state-rooms, which are finished in a simple Gothic style (with the exception of the ball-room, which is in that of Louis XIV.); but they are not yet furnished.